ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a brief historical overview of Japan's path to democracy. It offers a closer look at the internal mechanisms through which liberal democratic values, institutions, and practices were modified to accommodate the pre-existing political system as well as how Japan's Confucian-influenced values, institutions, and practices adapted to accommodate liberal democracy. The 1889 Meiji Constitution embodied both Japan's traditional Confucian-based political values as well as the newer values and institutions of liberal democracy. Joining counterparts in Europe and North America, rural and urban Japanese alike mobilized to demand that the government address the broadening range of social and environmental problems and cease its support of the Vietnam War. The chapter provides examples from contemporary Japan to highlight the ways that Confucian-influenced traditional Japanese values, institutions, and practices have been modified to accommodate democratic values, institutions, and practices. At that time Japan's political values, institutions, and practices were almost entirely antithetical to democracy.
